


From The Shadows

by Severina



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: prompt_in_a_box, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2585912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's been too long stuck inside, too long scheming and planning.  She yearns for open spaces, fresh air, warm sunlight on her face, crumbling earth beneath her feet instead of scuffed linoleum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From The Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Future Fic, post "Slabtown". Written for LJ's prompt_in_a_box community for the prompt "shadows"
> 
> * * *

Beth is gasping for breath by the time she reaches the door that should lead to the outside parking garage. 

She hesitates with her hand on the doorknob, briefly closes her eyes. She'd only had a few moments with the stolen building plans before she'd had to hide them away from Dawn's approach, and the darkened corridors all looked alike as she fled before the walker's advance. She could be wrong. But she takes a steadying breath and wraps her fingers determinedly around the handle. She is here, whether it's right or wrong, so the decision has already been made.

The door opens to half a dozen broken-down cars and the empty, echoing expanse of the garage.

Beth steps quickly to her right, into the shadows of a concrete pillar, and cocks her head. The sound of the gunshots is muffled here, as are the moans of the undead. She takes a moment to appreciate the feel of the breeze on her heated skin, teasing of rain to come. She's been too long stuck inside, too long scheming and planning. She yearns for open spaces, fresh air, warm sunlight on her face, crumbling earth beneath her feet instead of scuffed linoleum.

Even if it doesn't last, even if she's taken down before she can reach the outskirts of the city. She would rather die with the wind in her face.

She takes another breath before darting out and checking the few cars for supplies. But nothing has been left behind by Dawn and her cronies, not even a rusted hubcap that she could pry off and use as a makeshift weapon. She abandons her search quickly, heads instead to the edge of the roof.

The distance to the ground is further than she thought it would be.

Beth steps back into the shadows at a glint of light from below, shields her eyes to make out Cavanaugh and O'Neill moving forward from the hospital entrance, rifles at their shoulders. Beyond them she can see that the gates are open, walkers spilling into the courtyard far more quickly than the cops can take them down. Carol has done her part, then, and she can't help that the smile that twists her face is cold and hard. Between her work at the back fence and what Carol has done out front, the building will soon be overrun. She's almost surprised at her sudden wrench of pity – not for Dawn, with her arrogance and her cruelty, nor for the men who tried to paw at her. But for Doctor Edwards, perhaps. For Mitchell, who snuck her extra rations.

Then she lifts her chin, firms her resolve. She had to escape, but more than that… she had to make sure that no one else was ever again taken against her will, held and tormented and abused. Their captors won't be able to harm anyone again. 

She edges along the wall, keeping to the shadows as the gunfire intensifies. She can hear screams now, amongst the moans, and she wonders if the walkers have breached the front doors as they did the back, if they are now shambling through all the gloomy corridors. As if in answer to her unvoiced question, the door behind her rattles as a body thumps against it. Her head whips around to eye it warily, but the door will hold. For now. 

She finally finds a spot where bushes spread wild against the building, grown thick and lush in the heat. It's her best option to break her fall, and before she can let doubt creep in she quickly eases herself onto the ledge and twists her body so that can grip the edge of the roof with her upper arms. The cast makes holding on more difficult than she'd prepared for, and before she's completely ready she is falling toward the ground, landing awkwardly in the midst of the brambles. She winces at the scrape of thorns on her arms, her cheeks, her shins where the thin hospital scrubs have ridden up as she fell. She welcomes each and every hurt because they mean she's still alive. 

The gunfire is only intermittent now, but the moans are louder. The snarl as a walker spots prey is different from the almost wistful moans that they make when they're simply wandering, and she hears many of those snarls now. Snarls, and the rending of flesh. The wet slap of blood and sinew being ripped and torn from broken bodies, and the crack of splintering bone.

She swallows dryly. Despite what they've done to her, to Graham, to Joan… she hopes their deaths are quick. She hopes God forgives them. 

Gathering herself, Beth crabwalks to the corner of the building, dares a quick look into the courtyard and the gaping fence beyond. The walkers between her and her freedom look almost insurmountable, their numbers spilling into the yard and filling every available space. And for a moment she is frozen in time, safe and invisible in the shadows of the building, and has to resist the almost overwhelming urge to crawl back amongst the brambles, to huddle into herself and cover her head with her hands and pray for it to be over. 

She takes several quick breaths before she leaves her shelter and steps into the sunlight. The heat bakes into her skin, and she turns her face to the sun and allows herself a brief smile. If it ends now, at least she felt the sun on her face again. 

Then she rushes forward, stopping only to scoop up a long piece of metal from the ground – part of a bike rack, most of it twisted and bent around a crashed car. She hefts it in her hand, testing its weight, before she dashes out into the open space. It's only a heartbeat until the first walker sees her, then another, then another, and she slashes out with her makeshift weapon and keeps running forward. Her sneakered feet slap on the concrete and she darts among the lurching bodies and her chest heaves with the exertion, and still she runs. 

She doesn't know if she will make it to her rendezvous point with Carol; doesn't know if she will find her family again, find Daryl again. 

But she will try. She is strong.


End file.
